Elijah Part 2 - Encountering God in unexpected places

Last week we began our series on the life of the prophet Elijah. We started by looking at the kind of people God uses - he was a man like us.That makes this series a particularly humbling one because that is people like us that God desires to use to accomplish His will.

We saw that Elijah bursts onto the scene, tells Ahab that it won’t rain and then God takes him to a brook called Cherith (meaning “To cut down”) and keeps him there and feeds him there. God was busy cutting him down, refining him, preparing him. The story continues!

1 Kings 17:7-24

Today we discover that the story continues as we see Elijah encountering God in unexpected places. These encounters, whatever they look like, are meant to help us become more faithful followers of Jesus in today’s world!

For many of us we have met God in unexpected places e.g. someone might have encouraged you at the right time.

We expect to encounter God where it suits us, where it’s convenient for us. It may be in times of worship where it is true that God works in amazing ways into people’s hearts. But when I look through the Bible I often find the opposite is true and we’re called to look to encounter God in unexpected places.

Have you ever thought how many people in the Bible encountered God in unexpected places?

Noah – in his aloneness as a righteous man, God tells him to make an ark and prepare for a flood – he’s already the weird one.

Moses and the burning bush

The disciples on a stormy sea

Saul on his way to kill Christians

This story that we read of how Elijah encounters God in unexpected places. Looking at his life we can get an idea of when we can expect to encounter God.

1. When  we can expect to encounter God

The answer to this is simple – at any time and at any place. This is what we find here in this story.

Here we learn of 3 areas where we can expect to encounter God.

1.1. We encounter God in the place of perceived abandonment

We believe we are in God’s will and doing what we have been called to, but it feels like God has forgotten us. I have had that! I know you have!

We find that Elijah is at the brook Cherith according to the command of God. God has said that He would send the ravens to feed him. God did what He said He would do! But then the brook dries up! It doesn’t seem like God takes him away from there before the brook dries, seems like God keeps him there.

When we think that God must have forgotten about us, know this, He hasn’t! Does God ever forget you? Never!

Isaiah 49:14–15 CSB

14 Zion says, “The Lord has abandoned me; the Lord has forgotten me!” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you.

And so we find, in the midst of this perceived abandonment, God speaks again. But God shows that he’s not finished because He sends him to Zarephath. That means he needs to go for a 150km walk to a place that is outside of Israel, to the hometown of Jezebel and her god. Zarephath means “refining” – it’s as if he’s going right into the Lions den.

God is saying, I’m still not finished with you.

When God says that, we can be assured of the fact that we can expect to encounter Him!

1.2. We encounter God in the outsider

This is the story that gets Jesus into trouble (read about it in Luke 4:25-26). This is Jesus’ first sermon is about the outsider receiving Elijah and the religious rejecting what He is doing. It seems, from what Jesus says, none in Israel would have accepted him – an indication of how low of the spiritual condition of Israel that God had to use a gentile woman, an outcast, to help him.

God is a God of the outsider. Every other religion focuses on God rewarding the insider. The say God rewards you if you keep the rules.

Everything about this lady makes her an outsider.

She is a Gentile – that makes her a racial outsider

She is a pagan – that makes her a religious outsider

She is a woman – a gender outsider

She is a widow which makes her a social outsider.

But she was the one that God was wanting to use and save.

There are a lot of things that can make us feel like outsiders, some things imposed by society, something imposed by the church and some things we impose on ourselves.

This is exactly why we preach the Gospel and why we are wanting passionately pursue the Gospel principle of diversity because in Christ all the divisions are shattered. This is why we also preach forgiveness of sins through the saving work of Christ on the cross. The cross was intentional, it was for the outsider, the broken, the weak – the sinner. Jesus Himself said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

This is why we need to realise that sometimes we are self-imposed outsiders because Christ has forgiven us of the sins that we have committed, and we need to receive that forgiveness.

Michael Ramsden tells the story of a Bishop in Iran who stopped in a town on their journey. Outside there was a man with beard a turban and a machine gun. His wife said to him, “You should give him a Bible.” The husband looked at the guy with the machine gun and said, “I’m not so sure.” The wife insisted so he put one in his pocket and went into the shop.

The guy with the gun followed him into the shop. A few minutes later the husband came out the shop with 2 bags with bottles of water, put them in the boot of the car and drove off. After they had driven off the wife looked at the husband and said, “You didn’t give him a Bible, did you?” He said, “No, I prayed about it – I don’t think it was right.”

She said, “You should have given him a Bible!” He reiterated what he felt, so she then bowed her head and prayed, “O Lord, on the day of judgement, when this man passes to an eternity without you, I want you to know that his blood is not on my hands, it was the failure of my husband to give him the Bible and it’s his fault!”

At this point the car stops and they have a bit of a friendly conversation which ended with the words, “If you want me to die, I will!” They then turned around and drove back. The husband got out the car, walked over to the guy and gave him a Bible.

The guy took it, looked at it, and then started to cry. He said, “Three days ago God spoke to me in a dream and told me to come and stand here and wait till someone gave me the book of life. Thank you for giving me this book of life.”

God is for the outsider!

1.3. We encounter God through deep pain

This widow’s son gets sick and dies. She has enjoyed the benefits of God’s supply, but now she looks at Elijah, and with language that is full of disillusionment, emotional, full of self-pity and hopelessness. Look at what she says to Elijah:

1 Kings 17:18 CSB

18 She said to Elijah, “Man of God, what do you have against me? Have you come to call attention to my iniquity so that my son is put to death?”

God takes us to the edge to save us and prepare us, not destroy us!

A.W. Pink says, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.”

Notice some things here. Elijah doesn’t argue with her – he’s the one who knows God and so has hope – her god is Baal and there’s no hope there. It doesn’t matter what she thinks about him.

This was an opportunity for God to show that He could do something that no other god of this world could do and that was make a dead person live. Elijah takes him and prays - he cries to God and the boy lives.

All of this is living the Gospel of grace . If you understand the Gospel you will be giving more attention to those outside the Christian faith. Many times God allows to go through the circumstances that we face so that we can be used in greater ways to build His kingdom.

2. Why we can expect to encounter God in unexpected places

2.1. God has gone before us

God says to Elijah, “I have commanded a widow to feed you…” He arrives and it’s not all that clear that she has been commanded because she doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that she’s been commanded. We see it in the fact that she agrees to do everything that he says and it brings salvation to her household.

This is a picture of salvation right here. When someone makes the decision to follow Jesus, they haven’t quite understood all the workings at that point. But as we begin to read the Bible we see that the reason I responded was not it was in me to respond, but because Jesus was at work in me. The faith that I had was a gift and my response was for His glory because God was loving the outsider!

Let me also ask you this question – are you in the habit of committing yourselves and your day to the Lord? How do you respond when your day takes an unexpected turn? Is that an opportunity for God to work or is that the avenue for frustration?

2.2. God can use who He wants

We may have all heard of Balaam when God causes a donkey to speak. Have you heard of the widow from Zarephath? Don’t be too quick to put God in a box. God fashions us through daily things!

2.3. God can do the unexpected

There’s nothing that He can’t do.

2.4. God is always present in trials

Greg Haslam says, “Trials are God’s vote of confidence in you. They refine faith, mature patience, develop character, fuel perseverance and confirm hope (Romans 5:1-5).”

2.5. God will show Himself great

I believe God wants to show off His glory today.

3. How I can prepare myself to encounter God

This is the crux of the matter in what we’re looking at today. Sometimes our problem is that we’re too passive - we could be waiting for God to come and touch, but God is saying, “You will encounter me when you follow me.”  

3.1. I need to surrender to enter into a relationship with Jesus

How much is your Christian life about you? How much is it about being God’s?

Ephesians 2:10 CSB

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

3.2. I need to be willing  to go to Cherith and Zarephath to become like Jesus

By this I mean, we must be prepared to be cut down and refined. We know we need it and when we’re there we can be assured of this, “God has not abandoned you!”

3.3. I need to be willing to obey acknowledging the kingship of Jesus

It must have seemed confusing to hear God saying to him that he should go to Zarephath. That’s the heart of all his troubles right there. But God was busy with him and through him.

3.4. I need to pray because I need Jesus

It’s no good when you’re the one with the friend who has brokenness in their lives to say, “Come to church on Sunday.” You be the messenger of hope.

I feel that today we also need to be praying for people today. People who are not well, people who have facing financial struggles etc